I asked her if it would be okay to post it here (and she’s agreed), because I think it speaks to the heart of what many of us are beginning to realize: Our ‘hard skills’ training is often excellent, but the soft skills that make our lives much more manageable and enjoyable, and can play a significant role in your career development both inside and outside academia.

“Because no matter where you are in your career, but most especially if you are just starting out, or (god forbid) a grad student, you are, as an academic, insecure, verbose, defensive, paranoid, beset by feelings of inadequacy, pretentious, self-involved, communicatively challenged, and fixated on minutiae.”